Aug. 13 (Asia Today) -- South Korea's main opposition leader said Thursday his party will pursue an election lawsuit and seek a special counsel after the National Election Commission rejected complaints filed by the People Power Party.
Jang Dong-hyeok, leader of the conservative People Power Party, criticized the commission's decision during a meeting of the party's Supreme Council at the National Assembly.
"As expected, the National Election Commission rejected our party's election appeals," Jang said. "We will fight again through an election lawsuit and appoint a proper special counsel to uncover the full truth."
Jang accused the commission of effectively granting itself immunity from scrutiny.
He compared its response to acknowledging that a referee made a bad call while refusing to review video footage.
"The election commission itself acknowledged that regulations were violated," Jang said. "What is the difference between admitting a bad call and then saying it will never look at VAR when asked to check?"
VAR refers to video assistant referee technology used in sports.
Jang said the purpose of the party's election complaints was to determine whether alleged violations had affected the election.
He said the commission allowed only one round of oral arguments and rejected requests for additional hearings and live broadcasts of the proceedings.
The opposition leader also renewed his call for South Korean online platforms to display the nationality associated with commenters amid allegations that foreign actors have attempted to manipulate public opinion.
Jang cited research that he said was conducted jointly by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and Germany's Max Planck Institute.
According to Jang, researchers analyzing about 120 million comments posted on Naver identified roughly 24,000 malicious accounts connected to foreign actors.
Jang characterized the findings as evidence of possible foreign attempts to influence South Korean elections. Asia Today's article did not independently establish that the accounts altered an election outcome.
"I am not singling out China," Jang said. "Whether it is China or any other country, if someone tries to intervene in a South Korean election through public-opinion manipulation, we must stop it."
Jang had also called Wednesday for what he described as an "online comment nationality labeling system."
He separately cited an alleged espionage case involving a Chinese national who Jang said had previously served in the People's Liberation Army.
Jang said the individual had intercepted communications involving U.S. military aircraft and collected military information while operating a business near a U.S. military installation in South Korea.
He criticized the governing Democratic Party for delaying legislation that would broaden South Korea's espionage law.
Jang also argued that South Korea's counterintelligence capabilities had weakened following changes to the National Intelligence Service's investigative authority and restructuring of military counterintelligence organizations.
People Power Party floor leader Jeong Jeom-sig, meanwhile, accused the government of timing plans for a semiconductor cluster in the southwestern Honam region to benefit Democratic Party leadership candidate Kim Min-seok.
Jeong pointed to a series of government announcements and meetings that he said coincided with Kim's preparations for the Democratic Party convention.
The allegation was presented by the opposition party and was not independently established in the Asia Today report.
Jeong also criticized the government's handling of proposed changes to real estate taxes and Individual Savings Accounts, saying repeated policy reversals could undermine market confidence.
-- Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI
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Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260813010004436
